Syrian rebels say they receive more weapons for Aleppo battle

BEIRUT/AMMAN, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Rebels battling the Syrian
army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received
new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed
to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major
government offensive last week.

The rebels from three groups contacted by Reuters said new
supplies had arrived in response to the attack by the army,
which is backed up by Russian air strikes and on the ground by
Iranian fighters and Lebanon's Hezbollah.

The delivery of the U.S.-made TOW missiles to rebels in
Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria appears to be an initial response
to the new Russian-Iranian intervention. Foreign states
supporting the rebels include Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

But officials from one of the Aleppo-based rebel groups said
the supplies were inadequate for the scale of the assault, one
of several ground offensives underway with Russian air support.

"A few (TOW missiles) will not do the trick. They need
dozens," said one official, declining to be named due to the
political sensitivity of the military support programme.

A number of rebel groups vetted by states opposed to Assad
have been supplied with weapons via Turkey, part of a programme
supported by the United States and which has in some cases
included military training by the Central Intelligence Agency.

These groups fight under the banner of the "Free Syrian
Army" - a loose affiliation of rebels that do not operate with a
centralised command structure and have been widely eclipsed by
jihadist groups such as the Nusra Front and Islamic State.

"We received more supplies of ammunition in greater
quantities than before, including mortar bombs, rocket launchers
and anti-tank (missiles)," said Issa al-Turkmani, a commander in
the FSA-affiliated Sultan Murad group fighting in the Aleppo
area. "We have received more new TOWs in the last few days ...
We are well-stocked after these deliveries."

TOW missiles are the most potent weapon in the rebels'
arsenal. FSA-affiliated groups have also been using TOWs against
government forces to fend off another offensive in Hama
province, southwest of Aleppo.

Rebels there said last week they had plentiful supplies of
the missiles.

Since the start of the Russian air strikes, ground
offensives by the Syrian army and its allies have mostly hit
areas controlled by insurgent groups other than Islamic State in
parts of western Syria that are crucial to Assad's survival.

"LAST THREE DAYS WERE BAD"

The Aleppo offensive is targeting areas a few kilometres
(miles) to the south of the city near the highway to Damascus.
The army and its allies have captured several villages.

Syrian state TV said the army had captured the town of
al-Sabeqiya south of Aleppo on Monday and said the rebels had
suffered heavy casualties.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs said the fighting had displaced 35,000
people from Hader and Zerbeh on the southwestern outskirts of
the city in the past few days.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights, which reports on the war using sources on the
ground, said at least 41 rebel fighters had been killed.

One Aleppo-based rebel group, the Nour al Din al Zinki
Brigades, said its military commander was among the dead. His
group is one of the recipients of military aid channeled via an
operations room in Turkey and is also supplied with TOW
missiles.

"The battles are underway in a big way on a number of
fronts. The last three days were bad. Yesterday (the rebel)
forces were able to form an operations room and to distribute
zones of operation," Hassan al-Haj Ali, head of the rebel Suqour
al-Jabal group, told Reuters via the internet.

Government troops and their allies are also trying to
advance to the east of Aleppo towards Kweires military airport
to break a siege of the base by Islamic State, which controls
some parts of Aleppo province, notably to the north of the city.

Abdulrahman said rebels had hit at least 11 army vehicles
with TOW missiles near Aleppo since Friday.

One FSA brigade, the Sham Revolutionary Brigades, posted six
videos on Saturday showing its fighters targeting army vehicles
with wire-guided missiles near Azzan. Videos posted by Sultan
Murad showed its men targeting a tank and a bulldozer with TOW
missiles near Abtin, captured by the army on Friday.

"There are TOWs in the southern Aleppo front but not
enough," said a second rebel official who declined to be named.
"Yesterday the regime's armoured vehicles were moving freely. We
had a shortfall in TOW and the regime APCs were able to move."

The Observatory reported fresh Russian air strikes on Monday
in the southern Aleppo area. Abdulrahman described the fighting
as heavy but added that the government side had not made further
strategic gains on Monday.

The Syrian state news agency said on Monday the rural Aleppo
area was one of 49 sites targeted by Russian warplanes, along
with rural Damascus, Latakia and Hama.
(Editing by Gareth Jones)